Security certificate warning in Firefox and IE8

Norton Security | Norton Internet Security
21

Thank you for your reply here PieterV.  This has come up before here and this information helps explain much.

22

Hi Turbo

If you want a second opinion ... you're not going crazy.   Just a few moments before reading this thread I was google searching "check point norton".  The first google link was to https://www.symantec.com/business/suppxxxxx....

Firefox pops with This Connection is Untrusted ~ www.symantec.com uses an invalid security certificate.The certificate is only valid for a248.e.akamai.net (Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)

So, in my un-professional opinion you are not going crazy ;-))

Regards

bjm_

23

Thanks bjm, I appreciate your input, and your diagnosis.

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Turbo wrote:
This is getting weirder. If I type norton forums in the google search bar, then click google search, I get a pop up that says secure connection failed,symantec.com443 is using invalid security certificate, even though I haven't clicked on any of the search results. This is happening only in Firefox, not IE8. Very strange, can someone try this and confirm?

There is a relatively little-known "feature" of Firefox that will prefetch web pages from links that incorporate a special HTML hint.  When a page is prefetched, Firefox goes to the site and loads the content in the browser cache.  It is as if you had actually clicked the link, but instead of displaying the page, Firefox stores it so that the page will load immediately should you decide to visit the site.  This is enabled by default and Google uses this to have Firefox prefetch the first entry returned in most search result pages.  So when you do a search for Norton Forums and the page with the faulty certificate is the first entry returned by Google, the alert appears because the browser has, in fact, gone to the site and attempted to cache its contents.

 

There was an earlier thread where a site that was attempting to install malware via a drive-by download caused Norton to alert to the Google search page as well as the actual malicious website.  There are also privacy concerns with prefetching insofar as pages that you never actually visited are nevertheless stored in your browser history, as if you had.  For these reasons you may wish to disable prefetching in Firefox by following these steps:

 

1.  Type about:config in the address bar and hit Enter.  Promise to be careful.

2.  Type Network.prefetch into the filter bar, or scroll down to Network.prefetch-next.

3.  Double click the Network.prefetch-next entry to change its value from "True" to "False."

4.  Restart Firefox.

 

 

Message Edited by SendOfJive on 10-25-2009 01:30 PM
25

Hi SendOfJive

per your request >  can someone try this and confirm?

my try populated Google search page w first search result link https://www.symantec.com/norXXXX..
did not get pop up secure connection failed,symantec.com443 [...]
I have Network.prefetch-next ~ False

FF 3.5.3

Regards

bjm_

Message Edited by bjm_ on 10-25-2009 03:45 PM
26

SOJ, brilliant as always, how do you come up with this stuff? After reading your post I do want to disable prefetching in Firefox. Thank you for the comprehensive instructions.

27

Hi bjm_,

 

With Network.prefetch-next set to "False" you will not get a certificate popup because Firefox will not attempt to prefetch the page from the Google search results..  Setting the value to "True" will cause the page to be cached and will result in the warning being displayed.

28

Hi SendOfJive

Oops!  I knew I had Network.prefetch-next set to "False" for the known security reason...now, I understand the security reason.   Thanks!  

Regards

bjm_

29
Turbo wrote:

I get a bad security certificate warning in Firefox and IE8 when I try to connect to the Norton forum. This has never happened before. Has anyone else noticed this? Any ideas what could be causing it? This is where I get the warning:

 

www.symantec.com/norton/community/index.jsp

 

 

 

 

[edit: Corrected link to Symantec.]

Message Edited by shannons on 10-25-2009 02:35 PM

Wow!  What a foofaraw you've stirred up.

 

First, there is a reason that the button is labeled "feeling lucky".  It means that where you think Google will take you is not necessarily where you will end up.

 

Second, if you look above below the "Reply to Message" and your name bar, you will see the words: "Norton Community".  NOT the words "Norton Forum."

 

Third, if you enter "Norton Community" into the Google Search and click on "feeling lucky," you will find out that luck is with you.

 

Best wishes to all on this thread.  :smileytongue:

 

Phew ...

Message Edited by mijcar on 10-25-2009 10:10 PM
30
PieterV wrote:

Officially the Symantec SSL site is https://www-secure.symantec.com/

Officially there is no SSL service at https://www.symantec.com/ 

 

If you visit https://www.symantec.com/ you will be redirected to http://www.symantec.com/

Granted, the user experience with the invalid SSL certificate host name is less than ideal.

 

Symantec IT is investigating why search engines are using HTTPS links to services that are only supposed to be hosted on HTTP.

 

 

I'm not sure, though, Pieter, what this has to do with the redirection to community.norton.com, which was the plight of the original poster.

 

Although, I have found symantec.com to be almost impossible to negotiate.